The outspoken Laxmi Narayan Tripathy was at her forthright best when she took the stage at the Bihar state-sponsored ‘Kinnar Mahotsav’ (Transgender Festival’), when she pointed out that there were hardly any people from the transgender Hijda/ TG  community in the fancy auditorium.

While commending the political will of the Bihar government and its department of Sports and Youth welfare for organising this one day event consistently, she rued the fact that transgenders who are ubiquitous in the state capital and around Bihar, could not find access to the auditorium.

She didn’t mince words. ” When your festival is in the fourth year, this hall should be filled with kinnars, where are they? and that’s the first question … We would like to see our traditional kinnars (Hijda/ eunuchs) here. Other questions are ‘How can the transgenders access the policies made for them?’ ” Political will shouldn’t be limited to tokenism, but to the implementation of policies that give transgender people security, dignity, protection from violence both domestic and public, and access to both higher education and jobs.

Here is what she said at the function: Where are the Kinnars?

Here is a bit of an interview: Bihar and the transgender question

  Bihar, LGBT, naked truth, Queer, Rainbow